As-Safira

"Sipri" redirects here. For the town in India, see Shivpuri.
For SIPRI, see Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
As-Safira
السفيرة
Sfireh, Sipri[1]
As-Safira

Location in Syria

Coordinates: 36°04′N 37°22′E / 36.067°N 37.367°E / 36.067; 37.367
Country  Syria
Governorate Aleppo
District Al-Safira
Subdistrict Al-Safira
Elevation 348 m (1,142 ft)
Population (2007 est.)
  Total 106,382
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
  Summer (DST) +3 (UTC)

As-Safira (Arabic: السفيرة / ALA-LC: as-Safīrah; North Syrian Arabic: Sfīre) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to the Aleppo Governorate. It is the administrative center for the as-Safira District. As Safīrah has an altitude of 348 meters (1,142 ft), and a population of 106,382 as of 2007, making it the 11th largest city per geographical entity in Syria.

Name

Medieval geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi spells the name Asfīrah[2] (أسفيرة), not as-Safira (السفيرة), which indicates that the definite article in the modern spelling is a result of hypercorrection.

As-Safira was known in pre-Islamic times as Sipri.[1] Historians[3] have suggested that the name Sipri may have come from the Akkadian word siparru meaning "bronze", which might indicate that copper was mined and bronze was worked there.

History

Since ancient times the city has been the distribution point for salt gathered from the nearby Sabkhat al-Jabbul.

Archeological findings

Main article: Sefire steles

The Sfire I Treaty which may contain 8th century BCE evidence of a deity called "Most High."

Notes

  1. 1 2 Ball, Warwick (2006) "The desert edges" Syria: A Historical And Architectural Guide Interlink Publishing Group, Northampton, Massachusetts, page 157, ISBN 1-56656-665-7
  2. le Strange, 1890, p. 400
  3. Notably Dossin and Lewy, see Sasson, Jack M. (1966) "A Sketch of North Syrian Economic Relations in the Middle Bronze Age" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 9(3): pp. 161–181, page 169, note 2

Bibliography

External links

Coordinates: 36°04′40″N 37°22′24″E / 36.07778°N 37.37333°E / 36.07778; 37.37333

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, March 08, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.